“I’m glad to celebrate success, but let ‘s remember that Elon Musk did not do it alone. He got huge investments from the government, from taxpayers, from those public school teachers and the minimum wages they paid. “their taxes to get this business up and running and help us deal with it in difficult times,” Warren told the Squawk Box. The Massachusetts Democrat was referring to the billions of dollars in grants, subsidies and incentives from the US government that have helped two of Musk’s companies – Tesla and SpaceX – for years. Electric cars and commercial space travel were anything but a sure bet in their early years. But now, Tesla has a market capitalization of over $ 1 trillion and SpaceX is one of the most valuable private companies in the world. “When you do … let ‘s also ask you to pay a fair share of the taxes. 99% pay about 7.2% of their total tax wealth each year. This first tenth of 1% pays less than half a lot. “This is not right. Make an investment so that the next Elon Musk has the opportunity to make it big,” he added. Warren’s comments come after the Biden administration on Monday proposed what it calls the Millionaire Minimum Income Tax, which would require US households worth more than $ 100 million to pay at least 20 percent of their income in taxes. More than half of the revenue could come from households worth more than $ 1 billion. The senator voiced her support for the bill, in line with her tough stance on property taxes. Warren has previously argued for taxation of the rich, proposing with other Democrats the so-called Millionaire Tax Act in 2021 that would impose a total annual tax of 3% on wealth in excess of $ 1 billion and a 2% annual net wealth tax. of households and trusts ranging from $ 50 million to $ 1 billion. It also made the taxation of the rich a cornerstone of its failed Democratic presidential bid in 2020. On Musk’s huge tax bill, about $ 11 billion in 2021, after selling $ 14 billion in Tesla shares that year, Warren argued that Musk paid very little in previous years, which is not an option for most Americans. Musk is the richest man in the world, according to the Forbes list of real-time billionaires, which sets his fortune at more than $ 290 billion. In February, Musk boasted in a tweet that last year he paid the highest tax in history for a person in the US In 2018, when he was also one of the richest people in the world, Warren said, “How much did Elon Musk pay that year? We really saw his taxes that year and the answer is: He paid zero. The public school teacher paid they do not have the ability to pay zero in 2018 or 2021 “. Warren cited a proPublica investigation that found that Musk paid zero dollars in federal income tax in 2018. Musk said he did not pay taxes in 2018 because he does not receive a salary. “All we say is, when you get to the top, the very apt, ungrateful top, then pay something for everyone else to get a share,” Warren said. “No one got rich on his own.” – CNBC reporter Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.
